Moments of Freedom

Moments of Freedom

15 November 2013

Soheila prepares for her wedding. She was born in Kurdistan, but grew up in Norway. Soheila has never been to Iran, but hope that she can visit her family there one day.

I never imagined myself as one of these thousands of Iranians to have left their homeland, but I had to flee Iran in 2009. The government had issued an arrest warrant for me, after my images of the Iranian uprising of that year had been published abroad. In my new life in Norway I have met up with many fellow Iranian immigrants, and decided for this project to document aspects of their lives. They all have different reasons for having left their mother country. But everyone I spoke to hoped that one day they could return to Iran—but to an Iran where they were allowed to vote in truly democratic elections, speak freely, dress the way they wanted to, and choose their own religion and beliefs.

Story

Javad Parsa was born in Sari, Iran, and fled to Turkey in 2009 to escape arrest after pictures he took of the Iranian uprising were published abroad. He later moved to Oslo in Norway, where he now works as a freelance photographer for one of the country’s leading newspapers, Verdens Gang (VG).